Minister for Health and Social Welfare Dr Seif Rashid shakes hands with Cherish Chatama at Muhimbili National Hospital’s Cardiac Centre yesterday. The child underwent a successful heart surgery this week. Looking on is Cherish’s mother.
Muhimbili National Hospital(MNH) saved about Sh1.3 billion this week by carrying out heart surgeries on 66 children born with heart defects instead of referring them abroad for treatment.
For the past one week, a team of surgeons from Saudi Arabia have been working with local experts at the MNH to repair heart defects in children.
The joint project aims at cutting down expenses of seeking treatment in foreign countries, mostly India.
The MNH Senior Public Relations Officer, Mr Aminiel Algaesha, told The Citizen yesterday that the cost of operating on one child was estimated to be $10,000 that the government could have incurred to send them abroad.
For the past six years since open heart surgeries started at the MNH, 453 patients have undergone successful procedures and 105 of them were operated on in the past one year, according to statistics obtained from the hospital’s Cardiac Centre.
MNH Acting Director, Dr Hussein Kidanto said that new state-of-the art surgical equipment have been installed at the hospital’s Cardiac Unit to help treat most cases of heart diseases, but the facility was grossly understaffed.
Dr Kidanto said that doctors from Israel, under the charity, ‘Save a Child’s Heart,’ will be in the country next month to carry out more heart surgeries on children.
He urged the public to make use of the collaboration between Tanzania and other countries in dealing with Non-Communicable Diseases.
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